Abstract

Two rarely-asked questions about Oersted's epoch-making experiment of 1820 are formulated: are there any forces acting on the magnetized needle after it has attained its stable perpendicular direction with respect to the current-bearing wire? If so, do they comply with Newton's Third Law? Einstein's view of 1918 strongly affirmed a departure of Oersted's experiment from Newtonian mechanics. A repetition of the experiment, however, performed on an electronic balance, indicates positive answers to the stated questions. Application of Ampere's original theory of 1825, and of conventional electromagnetic theory of the present, both agree with the performed experiment and not with Einstein's misinterpretation of Oersted's original experiment.